Free Unlocked by Courtney Milan Page B

would have taken such a surrender as an admission of failure—capitulation, by definition, was the very opposite of success. Then again, most people imagined that the successful mountaineer climbed Mont Blanc by persisting in the face of unimaginable peril and privation.
    Not so. A mountaineer who kept going when a snowstorm arose was not
successful
. He was dead. Only an idiot wagered his life against the flip of Mother Nature’s coin.
    That was the first part of climbing a mountain: deciding
not
to die. He’d had to learn that one.
    A formal walkway crossed the square; beyond it, a less formal path skirted the bushes. He walked alone in darkness, breathing in air that choked him, and trying to exhale every last frustration.
    There was a second part to mountaineering: determining when to make another go at it. Sometimes, the best time to launch an assault was right after a storm, before the snow turned to ice. Sometimes you had to wait until all danger had passed. Evan had always sensed that if he pushed Elaine too hard—if he insisted that she rethink how she truly felt about him—he would lose her.
    He stopped walking when the small crushed rocks of the path gave way to springy turf. A fountain, dry and empty of everything but the last remnants of moldering leaves, stood before him. To his right, a statue of William Pitt stood on a stone base. Pitt’s cast-metal head brushed the limbs of the trees that ringed the park.
    Alone with a politician on such a night. Diana would laugh, if he told her.
    And then a stick cracked behind him, and before he could turn to see who had invaded his privacy, he heard a voice.
Her
voice.
    “Westfeld?”
    He could see her only from the periphery of his vision, but still all his thoughts, so sound and rational, were swallowed up by her presence. He was nothing but a deep abyss of want, and only she could fill him.
    He didn’t want to turn at the sound of her voice. If he simply stared into the hydrangea for long enough…then he would be a coward. He turned to face the woman who could bring him to his knees.
    She approached until she was close enough that they could speak without shouting. Still, he couldn’t make out her expression. The new leaves of an ash tree blocked most of the moonlight, save for a few variegated patches that wandered across her cheek.
    “Elaine.” His voice sounded too gruff, like a tiger’s rumble.
    “
Evan
,” she whispered. It was the first time she’d used his Christian name, and he felt a little thrill run through him at the intimacy.
    “What are you doing here?” He narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing here
alone
?”
    “My parents are waiting for the coach. Papa is discussing politics with Lord Blakely, and Mama…” She shrugged. “In any event, I told them I wanted to speak with a friend.” She took a step closer. “And I do.”
    She was within arm’s reach. He exhaled. “Do not trifle with me.”
    “Is it trifling for me to say that I enjoy your company?”
    “I’ll be your friend in daylight. I’ll treat you as a comrade in every gas-lit ballroom. But alone, under moonlight, I’ll not pretend that I want you for anything but mine.”
    She didn’t say anything. She simply looked up into his eyes.
    He reached out and laid one finger against her cloak in warning. “If you don’t want to be kissed, you’d better leave.”
    She’d stolen all the oxygen from the air, and with it, every ounce of his rationality. She was going to run away.
    But she didn’t. She stayed. He slid his finger up her arm to the crook of her elbow. With the moonlight dappling her face, painting her skin in cream and ivory, she looked like an illusion—a fairy-story princess conjured to life by the sheer strength of his want.
    He pulled her to him. They were shielded by shrubbery and trees and the shadow of William Pitt, and even though he could still hear the clop of horse hooves, nobody could see them. There was only so much temptation a man could